Burning calories lifting weights

MeanderingMammal

erikfarrar wrote: »

LilRedRooster wrote: »

Best way for any exercise is to buy a chest strap and monitor your heart rate and go off those calories burned. I just wear my chest strap and go.

This. You all are getting weird with caveats. Wear a heart rate monitor and understand it's the closest thing you're going to get aside from testing under laboratory conditions.

No. It's utter bollocks a random number.

nutmegoreo

erikfarrar wrote: »

LilRedRooster wrote: »

Best way for any exercise is to buy a chest strap and monitor your heart rate and go off those calories burned. I just wear my chest strap and go.

This. You all are getting weird with caveats. Wear a heart rate monitor and understand it's the closest thing you're going to get aside from testing under laboratory conditions.

Better to pick a static calorie number that takes into account an average activity level and just try and hit that -- don't worry about "eating back" your exercise calories. Evaluate after a couple weeks and make adjustments.

Except that heart rate monitors are really crappy for estimating lifting calories. As for eating back exercise calories, this is actually pretty important for some people. If a person is using the MFP numbers and set up, then the exercise calories are to be consumed.

kimny72

erikfarrar wrote: »

LilRedRooster wrote: »

Best way for any exercise is to buy a chest strap and monitor your heart rate and go off those calories burned. I just wear my chest strap and go.

This. You all are getting weird with caveats. Wear a heart rate monitor and understand it's the closest thing you're going to get aside from testing under laboratory conditions.

Better to pick a static calorie number that takes into account an average activity level and just try and hit that -- don't worry about "eating back" your exercise calories. Evaluate after a couple weeks and make adjustments.

Some people have the kind of lives where they are sedentary some days and very active other days. Using a static TDEE number can leave them hungry on high activity days, so using NEAT and logging exercise works better for them. Especially smaller women with lower BMRs who enjoy strenuous workouts but have trouble fitting them in most days. Strength training makes me VERY hungry, but I only do it 3 days a week. When I was losing weight, I'd be cranky spreading those calories out over 7 days, I wanted ALL of them on workout days. YMMV

sijomial

erikfarrar wrote: »

LilRedRooster wrote: »

Best way for any exercise is to buy a chest strap and monitor your heart rate and go off those calories burned. I just wear my chest strap and go.

This. You all are getting weird with caveats. Wear a heart rate monitor and understand it's the closest thing you're going to get aside from testing under laboratory conditions.

Better to pick a static calorie number that takes into account an average activity level and just try and hit that -- don't worry about "eating back" your exercise calories. Evaluate after a couple weeks and make adjustments.

@erikfarrar
Better for who?

Unlikely to be better for anyone who does long duration cardio. Unlikely to be better for people with very irregular exercise habits.

And your "static number" (aka TDEE method) does include exercise, it just doesn't label it as a separate item.

And heart beats do not equal calories. For steady state cardio it might give a reasonable estimate for some people but even then can be a long way from reality for some people as well. HRMs are very inferior to some other methods of estimating calories (such as power meters on bikes) in terms of accuracy.

I think you might find that "getting all weird with caveats" is because people understand exercise and HRMs and the limitations with measuring energy.

CarvedTones

I am starting to go 3 times a week for about an hour each time split between some cardio and some weights. I am starting out logging 250 for the hour. I am not lifting heavy, just trying to stay in shape with maybe a little better definition in my core. I get most of my exercise outdoors and I don't want to slack off during the winter.